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Friday, July 31, 2009

House Falls for Cap and Trade Con

By Barbara Brazil
Leadership consultant
      Ever wonder what the heck “cap and trade” is?
       If you have not read or heard about cap and trade, you will — and you should be very concerned about how it will affect your pocketbook, and the national economy. Let's ignore whether you believe there is global warming or if it is human-caused. There are plenty of reasons why cap and trade is an awful solution even if you want to help stop global warming.
       Here in New Mexico cap and trade has been in the news lately. Former congressman Steve Pearce said that a vote for cap and trade was a main reason he decided to run against Rep. Harry Teague. In the Albuquerque metro area district, Rep. Martin Heinrich got “free” advertising in the form of a large newspaper ad and Heinrich's photograph — from various environmental, liberal, labor union and solar organizations — saying the cap-and-trade bill will “create clean energy jobs” — a wrong assumption. The other U.S. House member from New Mexico, Rep. Ben Ray Luján of the northern district, also voted for the bill.
       First, a brief description of cap and trade is that it (supposedly) puts a limit, or cap, on greenhouse-gas emissions linked to global warming, benefiting those industries that emit less than others by providing them with credits to sell or trade. There are many serious problems with the notion which, sadly, neither Teague, Heinrich nor Luján seem to get:
       â–  Congressman Heinrich's allies and others put forth the far-from-proven theory that cap and trade will “create jobs.” Here is what the highly respected international publication, The Economist, said on that: “Obama rejoiced that (cap and trade) would create millions of new green jobs. … As usual, he gave the impression that planet-cooling will require no sacrifice from voters. This is drivel. The shift to a lower-carbon economy will destroy jobs as well as create them, and hit growth. …”
       â–  Creating “free emissions credits” already led to a giveaway of 85 percent of the permits to industries favored by the most powerful members of Congress. Lobbyists for the powerful coal-burning electric power industry got most of these credits. By favoring coal burning, it deflates the opportunity to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
       â–  The emerging market in “emissions credits” is going to be handled by many of the same Wall Street “derivatives” traders that helped bring about the severe worldwide economic recession.
       â–  Companies will be able to say they are “under” the cap because they report investing in a “green” project — somewhere in the world! Who is going to keep track of a jurisdiction as big as the world, much less enforce it? No one will, or can.
       â–  What army of tax-supported bureaucrats is going to measure the desired levels of emissions and then the actual emissions all throughout this big land? Even the creators of cap and trade, which was originally used for a much narrower emissions category, say they have serious doubts it will work throughout the world's biggest economy.
       â–  Cap and trade has not worked where it has been in place the longest — the largest economy being the European Union. The EU also gave away many “free credits,” plus the EU market has been dysfunctional and in some cases outright corrupt. Nor has the EU system reduced greenhouse-gas emissions after having been in place for several years.
       Even if, against all odds, cap and trade did overcome the array of problems listed in the points above and actually did begin to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States, emissions globally will continue to rise. Why? Because the large emitters in the large and growing economies such as India and China refuse to go along.
       In view of all the problems mentioned above (plus others), it just does not make sense to assume that the foolish cap and trade plan is the only way to go to address climate change. Let us hope that New Mexico's U.S. senators, Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, analyze the issue more carefully than did congressmen Teague, Heinrich and Luján.
       Barbara Brazil has held many leadership positions in New Mexico, among them government relations manager for Intel, member of the University of New Mexico Board of Regents and president of New Mexico First town hall forums.
       

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